The lateAnne RicepublishedInterview With the Vampirein 1976.
Louis remembers another world.
“You could be a lot of things in New Orleans,” Louis narrates.
Sam Reid and Jacob Anderson on ‘Interview With the Vampire’.Michele K. Short/AMC
“But an openly gay Negro man was not one of them.”
Brad Pittplayed Louis in 1994’s big-screenInterviewopposite an unusually rapaciousTom Cruiseas Lestat.
Anderson makes a distinctive new Louis.
Lestat’s arrival is a welcome disruption.
But his offer to turn Louis into an eternal leech is sweetly sincere.
Is Lestat teaching Louis to live his truth?
(He wonders what queer theorists will say about Louis accepting homosexuality right when he starts slaying.)
But the show has a light, even daffy touch.
“No, you don’tbitethe blood, yousuckit,” Lestat explains to his pupil-lover, sounding almost embarrassed.
In the five episodes I’ve seen, they move from transgressive flirtation to domestic tranquility.
Then things get complicated.
Holy hell, though, imagine being a forever teen!
and supercharged hormonal craving.
The adaptation also adds underlying threats, teasing a vaster contemporary vampire mystery that somehow involves COVID-19.
(All hail Rice, building mythology-verses decades before that idea went mainstream.)
Louis' ambitions as a club owner are frequently addressed, then forgotten.
Supporting characters who should feel crucial like Louis' confused sister Grace don’t make enough of an impression.
(Will Chris Hardwick hostInterview With Interview With the Vampire?)
At leastInterviewdrains new blood from an old stone.Grade: B
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